Downtown Dave And The Deep Pockets blues jam growing into spacious new room

Downtown Dave And The Deep Pockets have changed the location of their Sunday night blues jam to Penuche’s Grill at 96 Hanover Street in Manchester, New Hampshire. And they’re really starting to fit the spacious room. With more open area than their previous Sunday night room, that precious blues sound just percolated and traveled around the room.

The other bonus is that Penuche’s has their own trickle of regulars who became interested in checking out the players on stage, and that means more potential converts to the blues. Penuche’s is also next door to Manchester’s historic Palace Theater and so the jam will likely pick up music fans after scheduled Sunday night concerts there.

Downtown Dave is, of course, singer and harmonica player Dave Glannon. Glannon and his boys sunk right into a blues groove with their first notes. Before you knew it, Glannon was blowing a wide, swaying line with guitarist Jesse Twarjan hitting those rhythmic riffs to create a jangly support while drummer Rick King and bass player Joe Zangri had a real palpable groove going on. King is a monster on the drum set, his gargantuan motions reminding of those Godzilla movies when Tokyo buildings got knocked down.

Twarjan pulled off a shiny solo phrase in “Too Close Together” that caught the hear with its bright color and tone. Eventually, the boys went into the Little Walter tune called “You Know It Ain’t Right” that screamed with a wild harmonica melodic frenzy and a racing beat. This travel at train speed forced Twarjan to pick off some country blues riffs to play with some snap over the thumpy rhythm section.

Twarjan was the six string steam engine on Otis Taylor’s “Ten Million Slaves” and the tune raced by like an action movie chase scene. Lots of rhythms moving along at breakneck speed with peaks and valleys to keep it lively and gripping. Twarjan played his phrase with grinding attitude.

A Bo Diddley beat gave a persistent kick to underneath Glannon’s harmonica line, forcing that melody to hop over the arcs from the familiar beat. Twarjan played what could best be described as a Satanic hiss in his grueling guitar phrase.

Eventually, the house band called up veteran saxophone player Jerry Paige to do his thing. Without warning, Paige played some sax melodies that could hurt someone, his horn zigging in and zagging out in the spaces wherever he could inject them. There was such an appropriate heaviness in Paige’s lines.

After the first break, Massachusetts blues band Bucket Of Blues played as a power trio. Bucket of Blues blasted “All Your Loving I Miss Loving” from John Mayall’s Blues Breaker’s album (and likely recorded by Otis Rush even earlier). Their drummer sang it into his vocal microphone while he slammed the tune home on his set. Bucket Of Blues played blues with a classic hard rock aggression, a lot of pulse in the drums, a lot of screaming guitar leads. Their bass player, Bill Cummings, kept it large and powerful to the point of breaking a string.

Glannon augmented Bucket Of Blues with his harp thing which kind of worked as Bucket Of Blues usually play with a harp man in their full lineup. Paige politely interrupted with his tenor sax antics. That dance of blues melodies, sax, harp, electric guitar made for a heady broth and plenty of people in attendance were scooping it up. Cummings sang lead vocal on “Love And War” with a smooth, ballad grace.

The next combo featured pretty singer Mary Fagan, guitarist Steve Grill, bass player Jed Rosen, and drummer Lee Sevigny. Don’t be fooled by Sevigny’s boyish good looks. The kid is a killer drummer and he made a lot of this sound possible with subtle adjustments of tempos, dynamics, changes.

The lady Mary Fagan sung with a sweet southern drawl on tunes like “It Hurts Me” and other bluesy, rootie, folkie material. One of the guys mentioned while passing by my table that he was in starting to fall in love with Fagan. Bass player Jed Rosen later revealed that he plays with a four piece string band called Hot Day At The Zoo in which he plays a big upright bass to support guitars and banjo.

Later in the evening a woman who looked underage, but turned out to be music scene veteran Kelly Ann Manning, was playing an able bass while a new dude, later identified as Charley Parr, played killer guitar in tandem with Twarjan. The two killer blues guitars made for something that loomed large and powerful in the imagination. No exaggeration. That dual guitar sound could’ve powered a tank.

The night was chockfull of driving blues nuggets that could’ve held the attention of either blues fans or classic rock fans. Downtown Dave And The Deep Pockets are really starting to fill up the new room, Penuche’s Grill at 96 Hanover Street, with the same sound that until only weeks ago was playing out in a small intimate bar.